


the guilty party

by wtfmulder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/F, Pre-X-Files Revival, mentions of msr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-05 00:25:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12782892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wtfmulder/pseuds/wtfmulder
Summary: Scully reaches out to Monica just once before she's back chasing monsters at the Bureau.





	the guilty party

Work. It has been work to find Monica. It has been a long series of agonized decisions, days of research, mustering the courage to dial a number, to make her voice work, to form words. That’s not counting the week or so it took her to convince herself it was a good idea.

Forgetting the past rarely entails initiating direct contact with it. But recently she’s been all alone with her thoughts, now that she no longer bears the weight of someone else’s thoughts, the ones that nearly drowned her but also gave her brief respite. Life at the hospital becomes routine at the worst possible time, where all she can do is wait for a treatment to work or not work.

A moment in history, a pinpoint so revelatory it becomes chasmal. Think back, Dana. When was the last time you were happy?

Before all this? 

 _You’re a nine_.

She stills remembers. God help her, she still remembers. Clutching onto her cross as the words were spoken into her ear, her child asleep in his crib, the expectation that it would always be that way. 

Waking up to a knock on the door, late, late at night. She’d thought it was him. It had to be him. Instead she was greeted with brown, happy eyes, like the icing on warm chocolate cake, and she hadn’t found herself disappointed.

_You’ve evolved through the experiences of all the other numbers to a spiritual realization that this life is only part of a larger whole._

Monica had spoken those words too early. There is much of this life that Scully still yearns to understand.

There’s no such thing as starting over, and there’s certainly no such thing as going back. She doesn’t date new people. She doesn’t visit him, not even when the urge hits her so hard it registers as a blow to the gut. 

But  _she_ is a combination of the two. The woman who lead her through giving birth to her son. The woman who succeeded in  finding him safety. The woman who comforted her, selflessly… to the detriment of her own emotional well-being, Scully forces herself to admit. It’s not starting over  _or_  going back. It is a combination of the two.

It surprises her when Monica says yes. It doesn’t evade Scully that she is being entirely selfish, calling up old ghosts to fist fight her new ones. She has no clue what her leaving did to Monica. 

And she still doesn’t, not really, not when they finally meet up. Dinner is awkward and tense. Monica drinks more than she ever used to, smells more strongly of smoke than she did when she was trying to quit. It hits Scully hard.  _I used this woman_. They both pick at their meals in bouts of anxious silence, shadows passing over their faces under the dim lighting of the restaurant. Butterflies fill her stomach when her eyes land on Monica’s thin and open face for the first time, unconsciously slip down the shapely, regal form of her filling out her tight black dress. She stares at Monica’s legs too long. But the butterflies overexert themselves over time, then they die, and she is beginning to regret this when Monica says  _where are you living now?_

She answers. Monica frowns.  _Not with Mulder?_  She doesn’t seem pleased nor displeased at the answer, just surprised.  _I don’t want to talk about it,_  Scully says.  _Remember that time you read my palm and licked my hand?_

A smile, wide and genuine. God, how Scully missed that smile.  _Did you ever get that pool_?

_You’re a hack, Reyes._

The conversation doesn’t so much flow from there as it starts up and stops and starts up again like water in a tricky pipe, but it’s something. That a relic from her old life could bring her so much joy is white hot relief. That she can feel something other than pain and disappointment when she looks backward or forward gives her hope. Inviting Monica back to her apartment is the first decision she’s made in years that gives her no trouble, her hand a guiding, assertive thing on the space between the taller woman’s shoulder blades, their perfume mixing together in a potent haze as they trail out of the restaurant. 

She gives Monica the expected tour, drags her through each spacious, sparsely decorated room by the hand and never lets go. They kick their heels off at the door. She answers every question, even the ones that seem out of place.  _You’ve lived here how long_?  _Has Mulder been here? Do you still have any contact with the FBI?_ Any questions she has of Monica are shrugged away, but she allows the person she’s hurt to keep up her walls. 

Monica’s hand has left hers and drifted by the time they’ve been through all the rooms, drifted from the center of her back to the space right on her tattoo. She feels it through silk like she’s wearing nothing at all. 

She turns to look at her. The kindest eyes she’s ever known. God, the sexiest cheekbones, the most patient, understanding lips. It’d always been sweet, with Monica. It had always been so  _sweet._

For once, her thoughts are kind to her. 

“Let me pour us some wine,” Scully whispers, the smoke in her voice trailing behind her as she moves into the kitchen. “Make yourself at home.” 

She’s conscious of her thighs rubbing together as she pours out two glasses of Malbec, of her breasts rubbing up against satin and lace. She tastes Monica on her lips when she takes a precursory sip, savors it, clears her head of everything but this. When she steps back into the living room, she freezes in the entryway. 

“Monica?” She says slowly, startled, red liquid sloping to the rim of each wine glass as she stops in her tracks.

Monica jumps and stuffs whatever she had grabbed back into its place. A drawer slams in an instant, the crack of it echoing in the lofty apartment. Her eyes are dark and wide, hesitant to meet Scully’s. When they do they’re lidded with guilt and surprise, as if she had shocked even herself by doing such a thing.  
  
“Dana…” She pauses and clears her throat. Then she shakes her head, crossing the distance to cup Scully’s shoulders. “I’m sorry. You know me.”  _I don’t_ is the first thing that comes to Scully’s head, but she beats it down. The thought is unbearable. “I’m ruthlessly nosy.” 

She clenches a stem in each hand as Monica looks down at her, kneading her shoulders, then caressing her jawbone and cheek with a tender, graceful touch. She nuzzles into it, despite herself. “I missed you, Dana,” Monica says. And everything about her screams that she means it, especially when she leans in for a kiss.

Scully stills, unresponsive to the soft, warm lips claiming her own. The temptation of sinking into the comfort of Monica’s strong hands, the ease of her body that sways and molds to her skin like liquid metal, tugs at her blood to pull faster through her veins. Years ago, she held guilt like this even through the bliss, the uncertainty of letting another person try to build hope with the scattered parts of her. She had never been Monica’s; she had never been her own to offer up to Monica. 

But her mouth puckers, her tongue seeks. She reminds herself that you can’t use someone without there being a reason to use them, and there is no reason to use Monica. Not anymore. 

This time will be different.  There are a lifetime of decisions she’s beginning to wish she could take back, and this doesn’t have to be one of them. Monica is light. Monica is good. Isn’t this what she’s been trying to convince herself of? That she is deserving of light and good? 

Temptation builds and it breaks and she falls, and when Monica catches her, it is grounding and solid. They don’t make it to the couch. There’s enough of the other woman to remember that she is comforted by it. There’s enough of her to learn that she is thrilled to keep up with.

When Scully wakes up alone, she tells herself she understands. 


End file.
